Monthly Archives: August 2011
8/31/2011: Greater Yellowlegs
It seems like Greater Yellowlegs used to be more common along our beaches and marsh steams than they are today. This fine specimen is from late yesterday afternoon, when the sun was getting low in the sky already.
This is another “learning to use the new camera with the DiaScope” shot. With something as chancy as capturing images through the eyepiece of a spotting scope, you need a lot of practice before the critical moment when a really good bird appears in the scope field. Not that the Yellowlegs is not a really good bird. There is lots to like on a Yellowlegs, beginning with the intricate patterning of the feathers.
Nikon Coolpix P300 behind the 15-56x Vario Eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for the equivalent field of view of a 2000mm lens on a full frame DSLR. 1/500th @ ISO 160. f5.5 effective. Programmed auto. –.7 EV.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
And a bonus shot.
8/30/2011: Juvenile Semi-Palmated Plover
Perfect light, a cooperative bird, a new camera, and my ZEISS DiaScope 65FL spotting scope. Life is good.
I went out to the beach early yesterday morning to see what hurricane Irene had left us in the way of birds. It looks to me like Plovers stacked up here…they were present in good numbers…including a Black-bellied Plover, which is rare on our beaches. And we had half a dozen each of Great Blue Herons and Great Egrets. We get both here in those kinds of numbers, but not all together and not on the same day. We were out at the edge of Irene’s diminished track as it came up through New England so these are likely birds who rode the winds out from the interior to safety and relative calm on the marshes behind the beach.
There were a several of these Juvenile Semi-palms feeding along the shore of the little tidal creek where it passes under a bridge. I set up about 40 feet above them, in the strong morning light, and practiced with my new Nikon P300. (The Nikon P500 has done so well by me that when it became time to replace my digiscoping camera I felt safe in getting a close sibling.) This shot shows the full potential of the camera. If you look at it on Wide Eyed In Wonder (click the image) you can view it at much larger sizes to see all the detail. It was taken through the 15-56x Vario eyepiece on the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL. The camera was at about 77mm equivalent and the scope at about 30x for an equivalent field of view of about 2300mm. 1/500th @ ISO 160. Programmed auto. The effective f-stop was around 6.4, limited by the objective of the scope.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
8/29/2011: The Bee and the Bokeh
What makes this image interesting to me, beyond the fact that I like bees and flowers, is the bokeh. I especially like the receding diagonals of the brown stems, and the way they create kind of ceiling for the frame, and the well out of focus flower head in the lower left corner that echoes the slope of the daisies. Even the two strands of barbed wire turn to eye-leading graphical elements rather than distractions when defocused as much as they are. And I love the contrast between the smooth background and the wedge of well focused yellow and green that fills the right of the frame. I wish I could say I carefully planned the shot that way, but honestly, I was attempting to catch and frame the feeding bee, and the rest of it just fell into place…with a bit of a compositional crop from the right to get the bee off the static center of the frame.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 538mm equivalent field of view, f5.7 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160. Close Up mode.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. Cropped from the right for composition.
8/28/2011: Feather
Happy Sunday.
I am not sure what happened, but along the trail at Rutland Water I came upon a quantity of loose scattered feathers, like this pure white one, caught well above waist height in the dead foliage of a bush. I passed it by, but had to stop and return. The contrast in color and texture, the bold clean white curves against the clutter of background, was just too tempting.
It is a tricky exposure problem. Heavy recovery was needed in Lightroom to bring up the texture of the feather.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 32mm equivalent field of view, f3.7 @ 1/640th @ ISO 160. Close Up mode.
Processed for Clarity, Sharpness, and highlights in Lightroom.
And for the Sunday thought…well it is a very simple image, after all, to hang any great spiritual truth on. There is the thought of the passing of whatever passed along the trail, supper for fox or Great Black-backed Gull, that left the scatter of feathers to catch our eye…bitter sweet. Or we might think of the wind that picked this feather up and hung it in the bush like an ornament, which would lead to our capacity, our propensity, to see it so…and to a kinship with who breaths the wind. But mostly it is a matter of being arrested, stopped, brought to witness, by the simplicity of a white feather caught in a bush. And, on a Sunday, or any other day, that just might be enough to be going on with.
8/27/2011: Another Mood of Rutland Water
Rutland Water is one of those places I could photograph over and over again…which is fortunate since this is the view out my window (so to speak) for 3 days every August. I have already posted two different moods of this view. This is yet another, and about as different as different can be. From the final day of the British Birding Fair with lots of weather drama in the sky.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view, f8 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160. Programed auto with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity, Sharpness, Intensity and color temperature. Cropped slightly at the top for composition and to eliminate some brunt out clouds.
8/26/2011: Manicured English Morning
While at the British Bird Fair we stay at the Greetham Valley Golf Club and Convention Center about 12 miles up the hill and over into the next valley from Rutland Water. As you might expect the landscape is rather on the manicured (not to say manufactured) side…it is, after all, a golf course. Still, of an English morning, or evening, before or after the golfers, it has its charm. Especially when capped by an outrageous midlands sky.
And, since the landscape is already sculpted to please the eye (and the nine-iron), all a photographer has to do is frame and expose.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 23mm equivalent field of view, f5.6 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity, Sharpness, and impact.
And, you only have to turn around to catch the Brown Hare bounding. (I cheated here. The Hare is a shot from the evening before…but they were out behind me on the morning too!) You might imagine, if you like, that the Hare is in charge of the manicure.
P500 at 810mm equivalent field of View, f5.7 @ 1/500th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
8/25/2011: Peacock Butterfly, Rutland Water UK
Somehow the Peacock butterfly is all the more striking for being British. It is such a surprise, at least to me, to see this large, showy butterfly in the mild marshes and meadows of old England. Here it is feeding in the rushes and cattails along the edge of Rutland Water, on the unfortunately named Devil’s bit Scabious, right behind the Optics Marque at the Great British Birding Fair. What a treat!
It was not easy to photograph, as it hung back well into the rushes, where it was always partly obscured, making both framing and focus very tricky…and since the wind was blowing hard enough to keep everything in constant motion…but with the Nikon Coolpix P500’s long equivalent zoom, I was able to reach out to it for a few keepers.
Nikon Coolpix P500. 1) 810mm equivalent field of view, f5.7 @ 1/100th @ ISO 175. 2) 466mm equivalent, f5.7 @ 1/160th @ ISO 160. 3) 810mm equivalent, f5.7 @ 1/125th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. Cropped slightly for scale and composition.
8/24/2011: Ladybird, Ladybird, fly away home.
It was a bumper year for Ladybirds in England (or Ladybugs as we call them here in North America). This is evidently a good thing, as the native species are threated in England by the Harlequin Ladybug, an invasive imposter. I found Ladybirds all along the trails around Rutland Water.
Just for fun you might want to take a look at the wiki on Ladybird, Ladybird fly away home. The history of the nursery rhyme and speculations as to its meaning are interesting.
Nikon Coolpix P500 in Close UP mode. 1) 32mm equivalent field of view, f3.7 @ 1/100th @ ISO 160, 2) 263mm, f5.2 @ 1/200th @ ISO 160, and 3) 32mm, f3.7 @ 1/320th @ ISO 160.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.
8/23/2011: Rutland Water, Rutland UK
I am just back from a few days in England, working the British Birding Fair for ZEISS Sports Optics. This is the view, more or less, from our tent. A small lagoon at Rutland Water, part of a large wildlife refuge on the shores of a major reservoir. It is a typical English Midlands view…never the same for more than a few moments. It might look like this second image a day, or an hour, later.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at 1) 28mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 160 and 2) 23mm equivalent, f4 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness. On 1) I used dueling graduated filter effects, darken from the top, lighten from the bottom, to increase the apparent dynamic range.
8/22/2011: Purple Blazing Star with Goldenrod bokeh
Okay…after yesterday’s post, we have an image containing a real weed. To anyone who suffers from allergies to tis pollen, Goldenrod is most certainly a weed. Still, it is a very attractive plant in bloom, and here makes a lovely frame for the lone stalk of Blazing Star. I saw this shot in my mind before I found the angle to capture it…with the camera well below waist level and using the flip-out LCD for framing.
Nikon Coolpix P500 at full zoom, 810mm equivalent field of view, f5.7 @ 1/500th @ ISO 160. Program with Active D-Lighting.
Processed in Lightroom for Clarity and Sharpness.